In 1961, John F. Kennedy held a post-Bay of Pigs news conference musing that “victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan.” He was to blame, said JFK. Who is culpable for this month’s Republican collapse?

 
The Democrats retook the U.S. House and Senate, forced George W. Bush to dump Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and revenged a President they neither respect nor fear. Their victory has many fathers. Ibid, the GOP defeat.

 
1)   President Bush: loser.  Post-Election David Broder gaped at hapless, witless W. “Everyone saw this coming,” wrote the columnist. “Only Bush seems to be surprised.” How could the Frat Boy In Chief lack a clue? Naturally, as it occurs.

 
W. was surprised by animus against Iraq, Katrina, Harriet Meiers, Dubai port, and spending. Bush said immigration “reform” would help the GOP. Amnesty fractured it. He said Big Business would help America. Instead, it helped the rich get richer. What politician has been so wrong? W. is always shocked, without inspiring awe.

 
2)   Bush strategist Karl Rove: loser.  Successful GOPers hype Ronald Reagan’s general interest “shared values of family, work, neighborhood, freedom, and peace.” The tack lures even non-Republicans.  In 1960, Richard Nixon got 32 percent of Blacks; 1972, Milhous, 37, Jews; 1984, Reagan, 44, Hispanics. 

 
By contrast, Rove hypes the special interest: for Blacks, racial preferences; Jews, Mid-East policy; Hispanics, border illegality. His approach flopped totally: Hispanics, Blacks, and Jews voting 26, 12, and 11 percent GOP, respectively. Bush’s Brain has become a bilious bust.

 
3)   Conservatives: winner.  Rightist Democrats won in every region. Seven of eight state anti-gay marriage referenda passed. In Arizona, voters banned illegal alien benefits. In Michigan, they barred racial preferences. “Before Republicans started using social issues, they lost regularly,” said activist Paul Weyrich. Bush apparently wants to lose anew.

 
4)  Talk radio: loser.  Enablers have excused Bush’s conservative betrayal. Sean Hannity resembles W.’s valet. A week before Election Day Rush Limbaugh slobbered, “Mr. President, I admire you so.” Now Rush deems himself “liberated. No longer do I have to carry the Republican Party’s water.” Unlike, say, Laura Ingraham, why did he and Hannity pretend the Emperor had Clothes?

 
5)  New York’s GOP: loser.  Three years ago, emceeing a dinner, I was accosted by future Empire State head Steve Minarik. “When will you stop trashing our Republican Governor?” he said. Me: “When he starts acting like a Republican.”  George Pataki never did, this month losing statewide everything there is to lose. Resigning as State chairman, Minaril will now crawl back to his home town of Rochester.  Marley’s Ghost thrives v. New York State’s GOP.

 
6)  Neoconservatives: loser. The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, and writers like Fred Barnes, John Podhoretz, and Bill Kristol could not have been more wrong on Iraq via immigration to elitism v. populism. Their hero, Rumsfeld, has resigned. Even Bush no longer feigns that, as Barnes fantasized, “big government conservatism serves conservative ends.” The elephant in the room is that neoconservatism isn’t conservatism.

 
7)  Big Business: loser.  Bush’s has been Corporate America’s policy, monetary, and fiscal agenda, estranging the middle class. “There is nothing smaller than a big businessman,” Nixon told me. The new Congress may not bootlick those for whom life means the stock market, profit margin, and 401K.

 
8)  America: winner. This month Democrats wooed even conservative evangelicals. Like a drunk hitting bottom, many GOPers may finally ask: “How did we come to this?”  Voters affirmed that government exists for us – not the other way around.  These are profoundly healthy trends. 

 
Even better was the campaign’s North Star: accountability. Ineptitude was punished. Even Republicans scored W.’s on-the-job training.  At one time or another, his White House has called Middle America “vigilantes,” “racists, “nativists,” and “Xenophobes.” This month the middle class replied. 

 
God is said to protect children, puppies, and the United States. We may have lucked out again. In a sense, parroting John F. Kennedy, the Democratic victory has made fathers of us all.

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